


Let Me Play Among The Stars

by Skiaeral



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: "Can't sleep" fic, Gen, Logan is basically an astronomer, Starred ceiling trope, We Die Like Men, i really should be doing homework, idk you tell me, kid thomas, maybe a series?, stuffed caterpillar, this is probably the softest thing i've ever written, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27148687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skiaeral/pseuds/Skiaeral
Summary: Logan can't sleep.Neither can Thomas, apparently.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Let Me Play Among The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I have a ton of fics I should be finishing, but my brain went 'NO' and I wrote this instead.  
> (This is basically an astronomy/mythology lesson disguised as a fic, so I can dump all of my knowledge onto y'all.)  
> Enjoy-

It was exactly 1:28 AM on a Tuesday, and Logan was extremely frustrated.

Oh, as far as routine went, nothing had been different. He’d had a mundane day- waking up rested, finishing all of his work efficiently, sufficiently nutritious meals at the correct times, no issues to speak of. A perfectly ordinary day. 

And yet he couldn’t sleep, no matter how he tried. 

It was beyond irritating- one sleepless night could impact his entire schedule for weeks, decreasing productivity, which would result in even more lost sleep. But he couldn’t just… ‘logic’ himself to sleep, despite having attempted to do so many times before. It simply wasn’t feasible. Still, Logan tried, staring at the back of his eyelids, for so long that he couldn’t tell how much time had passed.

A minute, quiet knock sounded at his door. Logan opened his eyes, not entirely sure it was a knock instead of a various noise of the night. A few seconds later, however, it repeated, a tiny bit louder. Logan carefully maneuvered himself out of bed, grabbing his glasses, and headed towards the door. It was- he checked- 2:14 AM, who was going to be up? Certainly not Patton, he usually went to bed the earliest, and Logan hadn’t heard the door across the way open or close once. Not Remus or De- Janus, either- he had the feeling Janus would have rather swallowed molten glass then come to him, let alone in the middle of the night, and Remus certainly wouldn’t have bothered knocking.  
Roman, perhaps? He was known for refusing to sleep, instead working feverishly away on ideas, and often coming to Logan as soon as he could, unable to restrain himself from sharing at once. Virgil was a likely candidate as well, having insomnia and frequent anxiety. 

When Logan opened his door, however, who he found was not who he expected.

Thomas stared up at him with eyes wide as a doe’s, clutching one of his stuffed animals and his blanket dragging behind him like a cape. 

“Thomas, what are you doing awake this early in the morning?” Logan asked, trying not to sound accusatory- children, although fascinatingly curious and quite frankly, adorable, once they learned to talk, did not take well to criticism or judgement, he had learned. 

Thomas pursed his lips, looking down and playing with the fringe on what looked to be a stuffed caterpillar. “Bad dream.”

“Would you like me to wake Patton or Roman?” Usually, when Thomas had nightmares, his first option was Patton, followed closely by Roman.

Shaking his head, Thomas glanced at his feet. 

“What would you like to do, then?”

“Um…” Thomas swayed back and forth slightly, still not looking at Logan. “You know a lot about the...uh, gal’xy and the sky, right?”

“Yes,” Logan said, not quite sure where this was going.

“...Would you tell me about the stars?” Thomas asked, in a small voice. 

Stunned, Logan blinked. 

“Of course, Thomas,” he said slowly, opening his door a little more. Thomas smiled hopefully at him, still with the same eyes slightly too big for his face. 

-  
He wasn’t really sure how exactly the two of them had ended up on his bed, but it seemed right, somehow. Thomas sat to his left, wrapped tightly in his blanket and looking at Logan.

“Would you mind if I turned out the lights?” 

Thomas shook his head, and the lights clicked off with a wave of Logan’s hand, leaving them in relative semi-darkness, except for the ceiling. Thomas looked up with a little gasp.

The room’s ceiling was covered in stars, a near-exact replication of the night sky. Logan wasn’t sure why it had shown up in the first place, only days after he’d given himself a name, but he didn’t really mind.

“Where’s the North Star?” Thomas asked, still staring up at the stars.

“There’s a relatively simple way to find it for yourself. Do you see the Big Dipper?”

“Uhm….oh, yeah.”

“Go to the right stars making up the end of the basket and move your gaze in a straight line.”

“Is that it?” Thomas pointed.

“It should be. Both the Big and Little Dippers circle around Polaris, the North Star, so it can be used as a rough estimate of time.” 

“Why’s it called Polaris?”

“Polaris comes from the Latin stella polaris, meaning ‘pole star’.” Logan settled against the wall. “It’s essentially saying that it’s the star of the North Pole.”

“Oh. That makes sense. Do all of the stars have names like that?”

“It depends. Some stars haven’t been named until recently, while others have names that date back thousands of years, and different cultures have different names for stars based on constellations. There are a few that are easier to spot. You know the two stars in Ursa Major you used to find Polaris?” Thomas nodded. “They’re called Dubhe and Merak.”

“What about the rest of them?”

“The entire Ursa Major constellation, which includes the Dipper, is made of Dubhe, Merak, Alioth, Phecda, Megrez, Mizar, and Alkaid.”

Thomas wrinkled his nose. “Why’re they so weird-sounding?” 

“They’re all Latin, I believe,” Logan chuckled.

“Latin’s weird if it gives names like that.”

“Many English names originate from either Greek or Latin, including yours. Thomas can be traced back through Latin and Greek, all the way to Aramic.”

Thomas shifted closer to Logan. “What about the constellations?”

Logan pointed out more, Thomas asking questions about each in turn- Cassiopeia, Orion, Scorpio, the Pleiades, Lyra, Perseus. Eventually, Thomas’s questions began to taper off as he shifted closer and closer to Logan. 

“In Inuit culture, Procyon was known as Sikuliaqsiujuittuq, or the Murdered...” Logan’s sentence trailed off. Thomas didn’t respond.

Logan looked down sleepily. Thomas had, at some point, made his way into Logan’s lap, and he was resting on his chest. He was clearly asleep, and in some small corner of Logan’s mind, he told himself that he should get Thomas back to his room.

He’d do that in a few minutes...  
-  
“Rise and shine, kiddo!” Patton said, opening the door to Thomas’s room. He looked around, only to find that Thomas wasn’t there.

Somewhat alarmed, he made his way down to Roman’s room- sometimes, Thomas would go to Roman when he couldn’t sleep instead of Patton, and Patton did have to admit he did just as good of a job at getting Thomas back to sleep.

“Hey, Roman, have you seen Thomas? He isn’t in his bed.”

Roman looked up, alarmed. “No, I don’t believe so.” He paused. “Have you checked downstairs?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Do that, I’ll check the bathrooms.”

Five minutes later, Thomas was still nowhere to be found, and Patton was quietly panicking as he checked everyone’s room. 

He knocked on Logan’s door. There was no response. Again. Still nothing. 

Patton really hated violating Logan’s privacy, but it was necessary. He opened the door, looking around and sighed in relief. 

“Roman!” he whisper-yelled. After a few seconds, Roman appeared out of thin air. Smiling, Patton beckoned him over to the slightly ajar door.

Thomas was leaning on Logan’s chest, one of Thomas’s blankets covering the two of them. Logan’s glasses were crooked, and his head was at an angle, his chin digging into his collarbone, and both were fast asleep. 

It was, without a doubt, one of the cutest things Patton had ever seen.

“Should we wake them?”

Patton quietly closed the door, smiling. “No, let’s let them sleep.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, yell at me about any typos in the comments. Comments really do make my day, so feel free to leave one!  
> I also have a ton of ideas for this trope but with the other sides, so if you'd like to see that, tell me down below in the comments!  
> Until we meet again-


End file.
